Greensburg family warns others about help button that failed during emergency

Elderly man left in pain on basement floor for hours; company denies being at fault

Greensburg resident Patty Lantzy says her 88-year-old father was home alone when he fell in his basement and broke his hip, but the device that was supposed to act as his lifeline failed to bring help, leaving him helpless on the floor in pain for 15 hours.

Lantzy said a neighbor noticed her father’s basement light was on in the early morning and thought that was strange. When Lantzy went to check on her father, who lives just down the street, she found him lying on the floor in the basement.

"I came down the steps and he was laying right here when I found him and he couldn't get up,” Lantzy said.

She said her family figures he was there for about 15 hours and was pushing the button for help about every 15 minutes trying to get help.

The company that sold them the emergency alert system is LifeWatch. Lantzy said they stopped using the device after the fall and her calls to the company weren’t returned for a while. She said she still doesn’t know why the device didn’t work.

"There was a little light on the button and it lit, so I'm assuming the battery worked,” Lantzy said. "I had it right next to the unit and it wouldn't work at all."

Channel 4 Action News contacted LifeWatch on behalf of the family. The company was unable to offer an explanation for why the button didn’t work and issued a written statement.

"LifeWatch has initiated an investigation in this case and our investigation has revealed that the issue ... was not the result of any failure on LifeWatch's part,” the statement reads.

A company spokesperson said LifeWatch requires customers to sign documents when they first set up the service which contain fine print that explains it’s the consumer’s responsibility to test the device to make sure it is working properly. Lantzy admits she wasn’t testing the button, but still isn’t pleased with the company’s response.

"I just wonder if they actually care about the people, their customers,” she said. “Somebody was injured and that doesn't seem to be a concern of theirs.”

The family has now switched to a new company, Lifeline. And she’s also testing the button weekly to make sure it’s working, even keeping a log of when the tests occur so she doesn’t forget. And if she would forget, Lifeline promises to call consumers to remind them if a test hasn’t occurred in 30 days.

As her father continues to recover from the fall, the family has a warning to others who rely on the service.

"If anybody has these buttons, you have to test them frequently,” Lantzy said. “It's easy to forget."

Lantzy paid about $300 for a year of service with LifeWatch. A company spokesperson told Action News they will refund the unused months of service once the family returns the equipment they are no longer using.

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